I have served as Loudoun Republican Committee's 72HR/GOTV point man, as well as a vice-Chair for the Catoctin District in Loudoun. My concerns voiced here will be all mine. As an original member of Loudoun's Tooconservative "Posse", I have transcended Party in the past...in every effort to protect county citizens from corrupt practice. I run into two groups of people often. Those who are REALLY glad to see me at an event, and those who cross the street to avoid me.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Powerline travesty

Many of you are familiar with the PATH process and Allegheny Power's attempt to place an additional power line from Ohio straight on up to New Jersey and New York by way of Loudoun.

We would derive ZERO benefit locally. They just want the land to place this pass-thru on. In order to to put this before the SCC (The State Corporation Commission -you know...the one that Timmy Kaine just tipped in Dominion Power's direction with the appointment of one of Dominion's top lobbyist to that commission) Allegheny knew they were having trouble with a couple of adjacent conservation easements, and that they were going to be called on that fact, so they drew up an alternate route. Right thru my land.

Basically, they're willing to go around a couple more conservation easements, and burn 5 miles of cable in an effort to get back to their established right of way. Furthermore, they do not want a special tax district created on this bold move.Now, if I needed access to a piece of land on the other side of my neighbor's place, and I wanted to pass thru his property to get to that interest, I'm probably going to have to negotiate a payment for that option. I'm not naive enough to think he's going to give it to me out of the goodness of his heart.

Here's my piece of ground in the yellow outline. The dotted line represents the alternate route of a 735Kv line on 225 ft towers. Can you imagine what the resale of my property would be with such a monstrosty looming over the house? For power that won't even benefit my neighbors?

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

BPM,If the powerline alignment is ON your property, aren't they obliged to lease your land? Don't get me wrong, I am 100% against this ridiculous notion of building towers twice as high across this area. I just thought utility companies would have to negotiate deals with every landowner unless easements were already in deeds. It seems one step removed from condemnation. What a bunch of greedy bast ards.

The downside of the easement is that when they condemn, they ask THEIR appraiser what to pay me.

furthermore, the 220 ft. tower will effectively kill $200-250K of my home and property value.So, I don't want it there at all.In meeting with the groups who have combated this for much longer than I have...and have compiled a lengthy voyage into the actual necessity (or severe lack of) of need for these lines...They (The PJM) calculate for power usage increases across a faulty calculation using existing increases over the last decade.They refuse to enter variables like the ever increasing use of renewables that have actually DROPPED usage over the past three to four years. Solar power is increasingly being fed back into the grid in NJ and NY, where these lines are headed. There is actually a group of NJ folks who are as equally opposed to this venture. With the deregulation of the power utilities, and the sale of power as a national commodity (as opposed to power as a local commodity) the makers of this voltage are an antiquated COAL Plant in Ohio with no customers. The transmission of this power to a market some 4000 miles away, where there are "some" customers is not exactly grounded in the best interest of that community either, since the Ohio Plant will have to put out TWICE as much energy to even see half of that output make it to the intended customers.Electricity loses it's zing/current in long transmissions.The estimate is that a mere 50% of what leaves Ohio will actually make it to NJ.The short prognosis (the one based in truth and supported by the facts) is that NEITHER route is needed.Buying real estate in NJ and installing solar panels would yeild equal amounts (or more) of what would arrive in NJ from Ohio, and it would cost less, too.This Ohio line is actually wasted money. But since the Government has already, in effect, paid out for it, the PJM is rolling ahead (except where they run into absolute adjoined land owners who refuse to be split by pushing the needless lines onto a neighbor instead of themselves.)

Hello, I am currently in the cross hairs of Consolidated electric co-op in Knox County Ohio. I live on a small private grass airport community. The power company has already surveyed my property to run a back feed line to a substation a few miles south of me. The proposed power lines will run right over the appraoch end of our runway creating a 50-70 ft line of electric which can and will kill an inocent pilot just out enjoing his hobby. We are not rich wealthy playboys who have $100 thousand airplanes, most are lowwer middle class 50-70K per year families and flying aircraft costing as much as a newer cars (10-30K). The power company says it is the airport owners responsibility to pay $20,000-$30,000 to burry the cable for 30-400 ft to keep the end of the runway clear, even though the airport and runway have been here for 30 + years. If any of you have any info as to how th fight and win this battle let me know.

Dear small private grass airport community-- We have a wonderful not-for-profit entity here called the PEC. Their website is www.pecva.org ....Most specificallyhere -http://www.pecva.org/anx/index.cfm/1,263,1987,44,html/

Piedmont is one of our most effective weapons against these powerlines. If Ohio doesn't have an equivalent, people should band together and form one.E-mail Bri West(bwest@pecva.org) and see if she's aware of a sister organization in your area.

What she'll relay is that Virginia just authorized and instructed a local power giant to bury the first "pilot project" of 5 miles along our W&O Railroad line (for historical sensitivity)

Hope this helps. I'll do what I can to steer you in the right direction. You should e-mail me directly at honchonumberone[at]peoplepc.com

My Kevlar

I knew my Party affiliation by the age of 14. I was able to argue with the television at 16.
More recently, I was compelled to act when I began speaking out for my town, representing town residents against the actions of an overzealous Town Council, and with that involvement, it was only natural that the activism would evolve. Later, there were County elections, and as the passion to do the right thing for my fellow citizens grew, I became even more active in Political Action Committees.